I can clearly see the zeal and the honest patriotism with which upstanding and worthy Americans carry close to their hearts and share freely. But different men professing to be on the road to truth are often intellectually at odds with their fellow pilgrims, who, like themselves hope to arrive at truth. I therefore hope I do not come off as disrespectful nor frivolous by entertaining opinions contrary to the thoughts and impressions of my fellow truth seekers. Seeing as we are all but travelers on a darkened road, I will not hesitate to impart my sentiments freely and hope that they are received charitably. The question, indeed, the essential question that has been plaguing humanity from the cradle is, as far as I can glean, a question of whether or not humanity is fit for freedom or slavery; I pray that the magnitude of this subject is dealt with respect and not trampled upon by accursed mongers of sedition and mollycoddles. In contrast, this subject should be conducted with sobriety and rational conversation. It is the only way that we can hope to find the truth and come to a pure an prudent understanding, which is not only what we owe to ourselves, but also our fellow travelers upon this road to truth. Should I horde my opinions to myself and write for the sake of the filing cabinet, because I fear giving offense, I should feel that I failed in my responsibility to God and country. If my neighbor suffers because of my inaction, I should condemn myself for being a spineless and inanimate skeleton, no good to anyone and without value.
In good faith I must ask my audience if it is natural to indulge in the bickering and chattering of monkeys instead of engaging in the talk and dialogue proper to man's station? in contention we shut our eyes to the road of truth and begin to follow perverse paths. Are we to number ourselves among those who putter among the roads of truth and life with carefree blindness towards their own temporal salvation? As for me, I will not permit myself to be blind and inactive: no matter the adversity of knowing and preaching what has been revealed to my understanding. I will find what truth I can and I will preach it no matter how painful and prickly that truth might be.
In the light of my understanding, I can but barely illumine the road before my feet, but from what I can see I know that I know something. I know that the natural inheritance of man is to live in liberty and it is near impossible to divorce one from the other. However, it is not unknown for a man to sell his liberty; it is not unheard of for a man to consume his liberty. Remember Esau, how he had sold his natural birth right for a mess of pottage of which he devoured entirely. In like manner a man may be dispossessed of his liberal nature and end his days the servant of another.
In the light of this knowledge, I wish to know the conduct of the American people in recent years so as to determine if the American is deserving of the freedom of which he boasts. It seems that both from the Left and the Right that we are flattered beyond measure. Trust flattery not; it will prove to be the most deadly snare. Ask yourselves whether a nation can maintain their right to bear arms when they arbitrarily bear those arms against each other? On the other hand, are fleets of bureaucrats and armies of politicians capable of eradicating armed threat? Perhaps they can limit violence by restricting guns, but I fear that the psychopath and the madman and the barbarian, if bestowed with some cunning, could use the government as a tool so terrible and catastrophic that a few unfortunate theater shootings will pale in comparison with the havoc that a Lenin, Hitler, Alexander, or Caesar could produce. Remember the dark, yet brilliant Russian novel of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the book Crime and Punishment. Remember how the young scholar who wishing to be as great and terrible as Napoleon, slew the woman who he was indebted to, foolishly believing that because the woman was nasty and a milestone around the neck of society that he had the right to murder her. This was an atrocious crime, but it lacked the cunning and vision that Napoleon exercised when he committed his countless murders. The boy did not have the power and majesty of government to back him, Napoleon did.
Let us not deceive ourselves about Napoleon, he played the savior more than he played the tyrant, for after the Bloody Revolution man became a degenerate thing that abused it's liberty until the brink of insanity, at which point Napoleon stepped into save them. Those people, without the aid of a despot, would have utterly destroyed themselves because of the liberty they had. It has been said before, and perhaps more elegantly, that France was undeserving of freedom at that time. I wonder the same thing of us, are we worthy of freedom? The question is shrouded in mystery, but I'm inclined to say that, on the whole, we are not. In these sentiments, I believe that if we cannot govern ourselves, then we will be governed by despotic means; lets hope that the despot is enlightened rather than tyrannical.
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